Sam Altman said ‘the world should accept some bad things happening’ for the benefits of AI
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said there was a fundamental difference in worldview between his company and rival Anthropic on artificial intelligence regulation, arguing in an exclusive interview with Decoded by POLITICO that the technology’s benefits justify accepting some risks — and that AI should remain broadly accessible to the public.
“I think there’s a lot of daylight,” Altman told Decoded co-author and POLITICO senior tech reporter Brendan Bordelon. Asked specifically where he diverges from Anthropic and its CEO Dario Amodei, Altman said, “we believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency.”
Anthropic has long been viewed as the strongest proponent of AI regulations within the industry, a stance that until recently was at odds with the lighter touch approach favored by OpenAI. But the policy differences between the two leading AI firms have narrowed in recent months, with OpenAI coming out in favor of tougher rules as it grapples with high-profile hacking incidents and rogue behavior by its models.
Altman agreed with Amodei’s call last month to slow the development of the most advanced AI models. His company has followed Anthropic in endorsing new state laws that impose stricter safety requirements than what the ChatGPT maker had previously supported — a shift from its prior state strategy. And OpenAI lobbyists recently endorsed a bipartisan House proposal that would require top AI companies to embed outside safety evaluators.
Despite the convergence, Altman tried to distinguish his firm’s regulatory stance from Anthropic’s.
“I disagree, but I understand the perspective of people who are like, ‘This technology is going to get so powerful, and it’s so dangerous, that a single lab in San Francisco should have it and make sure nothing bad happens, and kind of figure out how to dole out the benefits,'” said Altman. But he called it “a completely unacceptable tradeoff” that runs counter to the “lighter touch regulatory stance” backed by OpenAI.
“I wouldn’t take a trade of saying like, ‘We’ll make sure there’s no major hacks, there’s no kind of like misuse of this technology, there’s zero scams, there’s zero all the other bad things that will happen,” said Altman. “Because I think people will do tremendously — orders of magnitude more — good stuff than bad stuff.”
The OpenAI CEO later added that he does not accept “the really catastrophic risks,” including the potential for “a serious loss of control to AI.”
The interview, appearing in Monday’s debut edition of Decoded and its accompanying daily podcast, also delved into President Donald Trump’s new AI accord with top tech firms and his attempted rebrand of AI to “super intelligence;” the rash of autonomous hacking incidents carried out by OpenAI models and whether the company should face legal liability; Altman’s thoughts on AI industry money flowing into U.S. politics; the influence of effective altruists inside OpenAI; and his views on key political power players including French President Emmanuel Macron to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
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